General

Hao, Ping. Peking University and the Origins of Higher Education in China. Transaction, 2013.

[Abstract: Renowned as one of the most distinguished universities in the world, Peking University (PKU or, colloquially, “Beida”) has been at the forefront of higher education in China since its inception. Its roots arguably date to the origin of Chinese higher education. Hao Ping traces the intricate evolution of the university, beginning with the preceding institutions that contributed to its establishment, and stretching from the first Opium War of 1839 through the first of several eye-opening defeats for the then-isolated Middle Kingdom to the Xinhai Revolution and the early days of the Republic of China. Hao Ping chronicles the contentious debates between reform-minded leaders who championed Western models of learning and conservatives who favored the traditional schooling and examination system, providing readers with details about the workings of the imperial court as well as the individual officials and scholars involved in Chinese educational reform. This authoritative history of the founding of Peking University defends the university’s claim to be the first modern university in China and offers insight into the formation of higher education as it exists in China today.]

Chu, Cindy Yik-yi. “The Catholic Church in China in the First Half of the Twentieth Century: The Establishment of Zhendan University and Furen University.” In Carolien Stotle and Yoshiyuke Kikuchi, eds., Eurasian Encounters: Museums, Missions, Modernities. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2017, 155-77.

Cong, Xiaoping. “Planting the Seeds for the Rural Revolution: Local Teachers’ Schools and the Reemergence of Chinese Communism in the 1930s.” Twentieth-Century China 32, 2 (April 2007).

—–. Teachers’ Schools and the Making of the Modern Chinese Nation-State, 1897-1937. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2007.

[Abstract: an innovative account of educational and social transformations in politically tumultuous early twentieth-century China. It focuses on the unique nature of Chinese teachers’ schools, which bridged Chinese and Western ideals, and the critical role that these schools played in the changes sweeping Chinese society. It also documents their role in the empowerment of women and the production of grassroots forces leading to the Communist Revolution.

[Abstract: At the genesis of the Republic of China in 1912, many political leaders, educators, and social reformers argued that republican education should transform China’s people into dynamic modern citizens–social and political agents whose public actions would rescue the national community. Over subsequent decades, however, they came to argue fiercely over the contents of citizenship and how it should be taught. Moreover, many of their carefully crafted policies and programs came to be transformed by textbook authors, teachers, administrators, and students. Furthermore, the idea of citizenship, once introduced, raised many troubling questions. Who belonged to the national community in China, and how was the nation constituted? What were the best modes of political action? How should modern people take responsibility for “public matters”? What morality was proper for the modern public? This book reconstructs civic education and citizenship training in secondary schools in the lower Yangzi region during the Republican era. It also analyzes how students used the tools of civic education introduced in their schools to make themselves into young citizens and explores the complex social and political effects of educated youths’ civic action.]

—–. “‘Teaching Baihua: Textbook Publishing and the Production of Vernacular Language and a New Literary Canon in Early Twentieth-Century China.” Twentieth-Century China 34, 1 (Nov. 2008).

Ding, Gang. “The Shuyuan and the Development of Chinese Universities in the Early Twentieth Century.” In Ruth Hayhoe and Julia Pan, eds., East-West Dialogue in Knowledge and Higher Education. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1996, 218-44.

Feng, Jin. The Making of a Family Saga: Ginling College. Albany: SUNY Press, 2009.

[Abstract: Looks at China’s Ginling College, the women’s missionary institution of higher learning that developed a discourse of family, recasting the Chinese Confucian family ideal as a female and Christian one. The institutional history of Ginling College is arguably a family history. Ginling, a Christian, women’s college in Nanjing founded by Western missionaries, saw itself as a family. The school’s leaders built on the Confucian ideal to envision a feminized, Christian family—one that would spread Christianity and uplift the family that was the Chinese nation. Exploring the various incarnations of the trope of the “Ginling family,” Jin Feng takes a microscopic view by emphasizing personal, subjective perspectives from the written and oral records of the Chinese and American women who created and sustained the school. Even when using more seemingly ordinary official documents, Feng seeks to shed light on the motives and dynamic interactions that created them and the impact they had on individual lives. Using this perspective, Feng questions the standard characterization of missionary higher education as simply Western cultural imperialism to show a process of influence and cultural exchange.]

Hao, Ping. Peking University and the Origins of Higher Education in China. Transaction, 2013.

[Abstract: Renowned as one of the most distinguished universities in the world, Peking University (PKU or, colloquially, “Beida”) has been at the forefront of higher education in China since its inception. Its roots arguably date to the origin of Chinese higher education. Hao Ping traces the intricate evolution of the university, beginning with the preceding institutions that contributed to its establishment, and stretching from the first Opium War of 1839 through the first of several eye-opening defeats for the then-isolated Middle Kingdom to the Xinhai Revolution and the early days of the Republic of China. Hao Ping chronicles the contentious debates between reform-minded leaders who championed Western models of learning and conservatives who favored the traditional schooling and examination system, providing readers with details about the workings of the imperial court as well as the individual officials and scholars involved in Chinese educational reform. This authoritative history of the founding of Peking University defends the university’s claim to be the first modern university in China and offers insight into the formation of higher education as it exists in China today.]

—–. “Between Nei and Wai: Chinese Female Students in Japan in the Early Twentieth Century.” In Bryna Goodman and Wendy Larson, eds., Gender in Motion: Divisions of Labor and Cultural Change in Late Imperial and Modern China. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005: 121-43.

[Abstract: Through an investigation of twentieth-century Chinese student protest, Fabio Lanza considers the marriage of the cultural and the political, the intellectual and the quotidian, that occurred during the May Fourth movement, along with its rearticulation in subsequent protest. Lanza returns to the May Fourth period (1917-1923) and the rise of student activism in and around Beijing University. He revisits reform in pedagogical and learning routines, changes in daily campus life, the fluid relationship between the city and its residents, and the actions of allegedly cultural student organizations. Through a careful analysis of everyday life and urban space, Lanza radically reconceptualizes the emergence of political subjectivities (categories such as “worker,” “activist,” and “student”) and how they anchor and inform political action. His research underscores how, during a time of crisis, the lived realities of university and student became unsettled in Beijing, and how political militancy in China arose only when the boundaries of identification were challenged.]

Lund, Renville Clifton. The Imperial University of Peking. Ph.D. Diss. Seattle: University of Washington, 1956.

McElroy, Sarah Coles. “Forging a New Role for Women: Zhili First Women’s Normal School and the Growth of Women’s Education in China, 1901–1921.” In Glen Peterson, et al. eds., Education, Culture, and Identity in 20th century China. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001, 338–374.

Ni, Ting. The Cultural Experiences of Chinese Students Who Studied in The United States During The 1930s-1940s. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 2002.

[Abstract: In addition to exploring the experience of these Chinese students, this study examines the social, cultural, economic and political history of the two countries. Due to the Americanization of China’s higher education before the Sino-Japanese War in 1937, the students were well-prepared for studying in the United States. But the unexpected founding of Communist China and the development of the Cold War prevented some from returning. When they did return, some suffered during the political campaigns in China, and a few became members of a CCP-controlled elite. “. . . a fine effort supported well by a wide variety of sources. . . . the United States and China have had for generations a deep and personal connection with each other. Countless thousands of students from each country have studied in the other and this continues through today. There is a record there that needs to be understood and Ting Ni’s work helps us to understand that record. . . . a particularly important contribution to the history of Sino-American activities and a contribution that will be sorely needed as we move into the coming decades when not only contemporary Sino-American relations but the history of Sino-American relations will become important tools for those attempting to guide our two nations toward a cooperative and successful future.” – Steven Leibo]

—–. “The Founding of the Imperial University and the Emergence of Chinese Modernity.” In Rebecca E. Karl and Peter Zarrow, eds., Rethinking the 1898 Reform Period: Political and Cultural Change in late Qing China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2002.

—–. The Power of Position: Beijing University, Intellectuals, and Chinese Political Culture, 1898-1929. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004.

Kulander, Greg. “The Chinese Filter: Assimilation of Western Educational Theories in the Early 1980s.” In Søren Clausen, Roy Starrs, and Anne Wedell-Wedellsborg, eds, Cultural Encounters: China, Japan, and the West: Essays Commemorating 25 years of East Asian Studies at the University of Aarhus. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 1995, 289-325.

[Abstract: The recent reincarnation of Songyang Academy, one of the “Four Great Academies” of the Northern Song dynasty, is an example of “academy fever” 书院热 in China today. Along with nearby Shaolin Temple, the academy has become a site for cultural heritage tourism in northwestern Henan. In addition to its attraction as a tourist destination, however, Songyang Academy has also been appropriated by neighboring Zhengzhou University as an auxiliary Confucian campus. Focusing on its relationship with Zhengzhou University, this article considers Songyang Academy’s restoration in the context of current debates in China about modern university education, Confucianism, and “national studies” (guoxue 国学). The Zhengzhou University–Songyang Academy partnership provides a concrete, if ambivalent, example of cultural governance in action, as provincial Communist Party officials and university administrators collaborate to produce a national studies curriculum rooted in their vision of Confucian pedagogy.]

[Abstract: The story of Hong Kong’s New Asia College, from its 1949 establishment through its 1963 incorporation into The Chinese University of Hong Kong, reveals the efforts of a group of self-exiled intellectuals in establishing a Confucian-oriented higher education on the Chinese periphery. Their program of cultural education encountered both support and opposition in the communist containment agenda of American non-governmental organizations and in the educational policies of the British colonial government. By examining the cooperation and struggle between these three parties, this study sheds light on postwar Hong Kong, a divided China, British imperial ambitions in Asia, and the intersecting global dynamics of modernization, cultural identity, and the Cold War.]

Cunich, Peter. A History of The University of Hong Kong: Volume 1, 1911-1945. HK: Hong Kong University Press, 2013.

[Abstract: The University of Hong Kong was one of only a handful of fully autonomous colonial universities in the British Empire in the first half of the twentieth century. From its founding in 1911, the institution was intended as a “British lighthouse in the Orient,” with a broad remit to educate a new generation of Chinese youth who would lead the to the modernization of China. This book evaluates the success of that mission while also demonstrating the importance of the university to the development of Hong Kong and Malaya, the two areas supplying the most students to the university. As the first university established in Hong Kong, the early decades of its history represent the foundations of China’s higher education system. This study provides fresh insight into the character of colonial education and the development of Hong Kong and tracks the fortunes of the colony from the peak of imperial British power to the catastrophic Japanese occupation of 1941 to 1945.

[Abstract: The essays in this collection cover topics relating to the history of marathon running in Asia, such as the stories behind the cities that have hosted the marathon, what role gender difference plays in marathon sport performance, and the experience of organizing the race in Hong Kong. Concluding sections advise runners on the proper way to treat serious injuries and the best way to prepare for long-distance running. Contributors are chosen from a range of universities and are leading scholars, practitioners, and experts on sport.]

—–. “Not all Bad! Communism, Society and Sport in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.” International Journal of the History of Sport 16, 3 (1999).

—–. “The Significance of the Cultural Revolution for the Evolution of Sport in Modern China.” In J. Buschmann and G. Pfister, eds., Sport and Social Changes. Sankt Augustin: Academia Verlag Richarz, 2001.

—–. “Which Road to China? An Evaluation of Two Different Approaches: The Inadequate and the Adequate.” International Journal of the History of Sport 18, no. 2 (2001).

Hong, Fan and Tan Hua. “Sport in China: Conflict between Tradition and Modernity, 1840s-1930s.” International Journal of the History of Sport 19, 2-3 (2002).

Hong, Fan and Xiong Xiaozheng. “Communist China: Sport, Politics and Diplomacy.” International Journal of the History of Sport 19, 2-3 (2002).

Jones, Robin. “Ten Years of China Watching: Present Trends and Future Directions of Sport in the People’s Republic.” In J. Tolleneer, ed., Old Borders, New Borders, No Borders: Sport and Physical Education in a Period of Change. Oxford: Meyer and Meyer Sport, 1998.

Morris, Andrew. “‘Chinese Men Look Like Real Athletes’: From Calisthenics and Gymnastics (Ticao) to Athletics (Tiyu) in 1910s China.” In Sports — the East and the West: documentary volume of the 3rd International ISHPES Seminar. Sankt Augustin: Academia, 1999.

—–. Cultivating the National Body: A History of Physical Culture in Republican China. Ph.D. Diss. University of California, San Diego, 1998.

—-. “Baseball, History, the Local and the Global in Taiwan.” In David K. Jordan, Andrew Morris, and Marc L. Moskowitz, ed.s, The Minor Arts of Daily Life: Popular Culture in Taiwan. Honolulu: U of Hawaii Press, 2004, 175-203.

[Abstract: Morris traces the game’s social, ethnic, political, and cultural significance since its introduction on the island more than one hundred years ago. Introduced by the Japanese colonial government at the turn of the century, baseball was expected to “civilize” and modernize Taiwan’s Han Chinese and Austronesian Aborigine populations. After World War II, the game was tolerated as a remnant of Japanese culture and then strategically employed by the ruling Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Even as it was also enthroned by Taiwanese politicians, cultural producers, and citizens as their national game. In considering baseball’s cultural and historical implications, Morris deftly addresses a number of societal themes crucial to understanding modern Taiwan, the question of Chinese “reunification,” and East Asia as a whole.]

—–. “China’s National Representation and the Two-Chna Question in the Olympic Movement: The Significance of the 1952 Helsinki Games.” China Perspectives 1 (2008): 19-28.

Yao, Ming, with Ric Bucher. Yao: A Life in Two Worlds. NY: Miramax Books, 2005.

Yu, Chien-ming. “Female Physical Education and the Media in Modern China.” In Mechthild Leutner and Nicola Spakowski, eds., Women in China: The Republican Period in Historical Perspective. Munster: Lit, 2005, 482-505.

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